Welcome to Writing, Wandering, Wondering!
Writing advice no one wants, an early year-end reflection, the last writer I had dinner with, and more
This newsletter wasn’t supposed to exist. I said I wasn’t going to do it. I said I wasn’t going to add yet another burial plot to my newsletter graveyard. *pours some out for all the newsletter platforms I’ve started and abandoned––Medium, Constant Contact…something with “monkey” in the name…what was it?…MailChimp!* I’ve just never been good about keeping up with any kind of regular email correspondence. (I’m also a terrible pen pal.)
But then I took a break from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (FIT) a few months ago, returning rarely, mostly to post updates on my podcasts (more about those later) or repost something someone asked me to share. And I started subscribing to more Substack newsletters. Then the election happened, and I subscribed to even more and started reading the notes and posting notes of my own, and re-stacking others’ posts. And my god, it has felt so much better than FIT. No tightness in my chest, no sense of overwhelm, no sense of obligation or pressure to respond or engage in a certain way––or at all. There are no expectations here but my own.
In the last few weeks, I’ve poked my head into Bluesky and Threads a few times, but I’m not very engaged in either space. Instead, Substack is my jam. Here, I’m reading newsletters by friends and favorites, and discovering new favorites every day.
Inspired, I thought maybe I’d try my hand at a regular-ish newsletter. And here it is: Writing, Wandering, Wondering. This newsletter will feature, in part, writing resources and advice, mostly gleaned from my answers to the frequently asked questions I get from emerging writers. I find myself saying, or cutting and paste, the same responses, so I thought it would be useful to share all of this information in one place. Not that I have all the answers or the only answers to these common questions—and maybe these aren’t the right answers for some of you. I’m offering my answers, based on my experiences, my understandings, my lessons learned. Mileages may vary.
For paid subscribers, this newsletter will also include my professional, personal, and pop culture musings, obsessions, and news. All proceeds go to Roots Wounds Words, Bronx Defenders, and National Bail Out. This inaugural newsletter is free to everyone in its entirety.
Note: After a lot of deliberation, I’ve decided to follow in my cousin Robert Jones Jr.’s footsteps and disable comments. I want my experience on Substack to continue to be the opposite of the drudgery vibes elsewhere online. I’m not looking for debate, and I don’t want to have to moderate conversations. The only work I want to put in is the curation.
“DON’T WORRY ABOUT GETTING PUBLISHED” AND OTHER ADVICE NO WRITER WANTS TO HEAR
One of the shitty parts of giving advice to writers is there’s (at best) a 50-50 chance that what I’m telling them is not what they want to hear. I want to be encouraging, but no one wants to hear that in addition to skill and talent, getting published, getting a book deal, getting on the endless lists––all involve luck, timing, and other random factors out of our control. That all we can control is what we put on the page, how we hone and continue to hone our craft, how we conduct ourselves on the business side of things, how we engage in community with other writers. That it’s best to find some joy, some excitement, some satisfaction in the process, in the writing itself, or otherwise don’t do it. Or else you’ll just end up miserable and/or bitter. That’s not what most newbies are expecting when they ask for advice.
Twenty-five years ago, when I first started writing, I certainly didn’t want to hear any of that. I wanted a successful (read: published and on my radar) contemporary writer to give me the magic elixir for how to get published. If I could find a writer’s email address online, I would send a dorky fan letter (I’m cringing as I recall) asking for generic advice about becoming a writer and getting published. Shockingly, a few writers responded.
One such writer was Debra Dickerson. Politically, she and I disagreed in some critical ways, but I’d read one of her essays in Essence magazine and seen some press promoting her books on race. She was a Real Writer, and I wanted to become a Real Writer. So I asked Debra for advice on getting published; I’d been roundly rejected, and I didn’t know why.1 Debra told me, “Stop worrying about getting published and worry about getting better at writing. Because if you stick with it, you’ll get published. But at that point, you’ll need to know yourself well enough and your writing strengths and weaknesses well enough, to know when to listen to an editor and when not to.”
In other words: Hone my craft; become a student of my own writing, including my challenges; develop discernment; be prepared to advocate for myself and my work, to listen to astute editors and to stand my ground with all others.
Well. That’s not what I wanted to hear.
Essentially, Debra was telling me to just write. To keep learning. To not rush, but to keep going. To give my writing the time and care it deserved.
That’s not at all what I wanted to hear. But it’s absolutely what I needed to hear.
Carmen Maria Machado wrote “On Writing and the Business of Writing,” and while she talks a lot about MFA programs in it, her wisdom “about the business of publishing and the fragility of the creative life” is applicable whether you have an MFA or not (I don’t). About her own experience before and after the Iowa Writers Workshop, Carmen writes:
I was at Iowa and feeling low because none of the agents or editors who came through, who I felt were scooping up my friends and colleagues by the handful, had any interest in me. Sam [Chang], in her distinctly Sam way, assured me that when she was here as a student she’d avoided the agents all together. “Just write,” she said. “Everything else will follow in its own time.” Easy for you to say, I thought. You’re a renowned published author. You’re the director of the most prestigious MFA program in the world! Of course you can tell me to be patient.
But years later—twelve years after arriving at Iowa, eleven after teaching for the first time, seven after selling my first book, five after that book being published—I can say with confidence that it was literally some of the wisest advice about writing I’ve ever received, even if I didn’t exactly take it. Instead, I spent a lot of time fretting about the fact that no one was placing bets on my success; no editors or agents wanted me; no one was beating down my door or trying to wrestle a manuscript from my hands. And then I graduated and worked at a soap store and adjuncted for practically negative dollars and cried so hard when I didn’t get a teensy tiny minor fellowship and picked away at my book. And it sucked and I was broke and scared. And then—years after graduating—it was done. The book was done. Not done as in, I’d filled it the requisite number of pages. But done as in finished.
I was lucky. Jesus was I lucky. Because there’s an alternate universe where I was writing a (more obviously) commercially viable book in grad school and agents fought over me and I published something not done, something closer to my thesis, which had the seeds of a good book but was not, in and of itself, a good book. Instead, I was forced to sit with Her Body and Other Parties until it was ready. I am so fucking grateful that I got to write the book I needed to, even if I resisted that process at every turn.
And resist we do! But eventually, hopefully, we settle down and do the work, which is literally the only way forward. There are no shortcuts, no magic elixirs, no guarantees. This realization can lead to a Come to Jesus moment with questions like, Why am I writing? Is it for validation? Accolades? and Do I want to write (and publish) a book or a good book?
Emerging writers aren’t always comforted when I note that books by some of their favorite authors were 5, 10, 15, 20 years in the making. When I share that I was 49 when The Secret Lives of Church Ladies was published, this is not always received as encouraging. I can see the anxious math behind some writers’ eyes, so I quickly add that I’m not saying it will or should take them until age 49. Just that I don’t know any writer who rushed their book to publication and ended up happy with the outcome.
BOOK THAT WAS NOT RUSHED TO PUBLICATION
Here is a book I’m excited about by a writer I adore:
Honey is the Knife by Hannah Eko
SPEAKING OF GETTING PUBLISHED…
My dear friend Laura Dujmovich got her first byline!
“The Pressure to be Everything: The Invisible Burden on Girls and Women” in the Indy Maven.
LET’S SHOW THESE FINE BOOKS SOME PRE-ORDER LOVE, SHALL WE?
Black Genius: Essays on an American Legacy by Tre Johnson
First Born Girls by Bernice L. McFadden
The Grand Paloma Resort by Cleyvis Natera
In Open Contempt: Confronting White Supremacy in Art and Public Space by Irvin Weathersby Jr.
Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis
HELP ELECTRIC LIT KEEP THE LIGHTS ON
I’m honored to be an Electric Literature board member, and if you’re among the 15,000 people who visit EL every day (3.5 million per year) to read essays, reading lists, short stories, flash fiction, poetry, graphic narratives, interviews, and criticism by over 500 writers annually, I hope you’ll consider contributing to our year-end fund drive.
ARE YOU A VERMONT-BASED BIPOC WRITER?
Annually, The Outpost Foundation invites one BIPOC Vermont writer to receive ongoing support in the form of manuscript reviews, meetings with literary professionals, and a week-long residency on their property. In addition, the writer will receive a $4,000 award. The Outpost Vermont Fellow will also help to select the finalists for the Outpost Fellows in Residence and will facilitate several statewide enrichment opportunities for high school students who are aspiring poets, fiction writers and essayists. If you know of a dynamic BIPOC Vermont writer and want to be sure they are on TOF’s radar, please reach out to them.
BOOK PIRACY ALERT
Is your book on the notorious piracy site OceanofPDF.com? Probably. Mine is, along with a bunch of writers I know; I stopped checking after finding ten of my friends’ books there. The Author’s Guild tells us how, and more importantly, where to send takedown notices.
TO SUBSCRIBE OR NOT SUBSCRIBE…
Writing, Wandering, Wondering offers writing advice and resources––always free.
Paid subscribers get full access to the newsletter, which includes my professional, personal, and pop culture musings, obsessions, and news. All proceeds go to Roots Wounds Words, Bronx Defenders, and National Bail Out.
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MY SLIGHTLY PREMATURE YEAR-END REFLECTION
I know it’s not even December yet, but I’ve been writing this reflection in my head for a while. Plus, come late December, I’m going to be on vacation, on the beach, not tethered to devices.
My year has been so…full. I describe it to people, and the usual response is, “Damn. You must be exhausted.” But I’m not. And the reason is, I’ve been goinggoinggoing but with one regrettable exception, I’ve only gone places where I want to go, to do things I want to do, and when I need to rest, I rest. And I’m grateful for the privilege to be able to move like that in the world.
I traveled more extensively than ever this year. Five countries, and I’m not even going to bother to try and count the cities. Between June 2023 and June 2024, I was never in one place for longer than three weeks. I traveled for university speaking engagements, conferences, festivals, workshops, vacation, parties, friends’ readings, family gatherings, galas, premieres, and writing residencies.
Lots of firsts this year, including my first time in Europe. I took my first cruise last month at age 53, after being anti-cruise my whole life. A friend invited me, and I’m glad I took a chance. I had dismissed cruises as floating petri dishes full of drunk white people. Blessedly, the one I went on was very clean, very Black, and very queer. I’m a cruise convert!
This is me outside of the Pavillons de Bercy-Musée des Arts Forains in Paris, wearing Mrs. Roper x Lisa Raye:
Back Stateside, I moved to Miami this year and fell in love. For the first time in my life, I’m in a healthy romantic relationship, and it feels amazing. I’m not saying much more about that here because this has also been a year of setting boundaries and closing ranks, opening my heart but also knowing when to protect it, saying no to others so that I can say yes to myself, cutting off toxic people and deepening my friendships with the ones who remain. It’s been a year of moving out of my comfort zone: snorkeling, biking long distances, trips to the nude beach, being spontaneous.
I left Pittsburgh after 25 years in 2022 and established residency in Mississippi and California, briefly, and now Florida. When I moved to Oakland, CA, last June after a year as the John and Renee Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi, my empty nester season (szn?) officially began. My youngest daughter graduated high school in 2022, but she spent her gap year with me in Oxford, MS. The only other time in my life I’ve lived alone, besides now, was in college, my junior and senior years. I enjoy the silence and the ability to set the rhythms of my day any way I want to. Which is wild because I’ve spent most of my life terrified of being alone, doing everything I could to avoid it, including marrying for the wrong reasons, not once but twice.
Professionally, I’m working on revising my novel, while also developing two TV shows2, adaptations of Church Ladies and one of my newer short stories. Announcement soon come about the new show based on the short story. I also launched a second podcast, Reckon True Stories, with my brother from another mother Kiese Laymon, and folks have shown us so much love. Many thanks to our fabulous season one guests: Hanif Abduraqqib, Alexander Chee, Dr. Roxane Gay, Minda Honey, Samantha Irby, and Dr. Imani Perry. And thanks to everyone who listened, rated us, and spread the word. Arimeta Diop wrote about the show for Vanity Fair. You can listen to the entire first season here. Our most popular episode was this one, on which Kiese and I discussed writing about parents, forgiveness, and grief:
Reckon True Stories is part of the Ursa Podcast Universe. I co-own Ursa with my homegirl Dawnie Walton and our wonderful producer Mark Armstrong, founder of Longreads. Dawnie produces Reckon True Stories, and Mark produces Ursa Short Fiction, the podcast I co-host with Dawnie, which just returned for its third season. Thanks to everyone who has kept us rocking for all these episodes! We kicked off this season last month with Theeee S.A. Cosby!
On our most recent episode, we launched our Iconic Stories series with a discussion of James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” first published in 1957 in the Partisan Review.
So…2024 has been full. Full of love, friendship, adventure, work, play, travel, discoveries. The election, of course, derailed everything, leaving me feeling numb and in a fog, like so many folks. Still. And while I can’t say hope for this country lives alongside my despair at this moment, I am finding some comfort in reading and learning from others who are also trying to hold on and find a way through the fog. Substack has been amazing for that. But as I mentioned, I do pop onto other platforms on occasion…
THREADS I LOVE
Tamela Gordon is the author of Hood Wellness: Tales of Communal Care from People Who Drowned on Dry Land. In this thread on Threads, she addresses how the experience of book marketing/promo can be different for marginalized writers. I’m also waving my church fan at her having clear boundaries and rules for engagement (“1. The [white author’s] comment wasn’t meant to engage it was meant to correct…”) Read the full thread here. (I happened to meet Tamela last week at the National Book Awards ceremony, and we had a time on the dance floor at the after party!)
THE LAST WRITER I HAD DINNER WITH
Actually, I had dinner with three writers at once—lucky me! Mateo Askaripour, Joseph Earl Thomas, and John Vercher were in town for the Miami Book Fair. All of them have new books out this year, and we had a fun night celebrating them at Watr, one of my favorite restaurants here.
(This will be a regular feature of the newsletter because the writers I’m in the community with mean the world to me.)
ESSAY EVERYBODY NEEDS TO READ
In honor of the film Daughters, Ashley C. Ford, educator and author of the beautiful and unforgettable memoir Somebody’s Daughter, writes about the emotional toll of growing up with an incarcerated father.
FILM EVERYONE NEEDS TO WATCH
From executive producers including Roxane Gay and Padma Lakshmi, Survivor Made is a documentary that follows six dynamic survivors, against the backdrop of the holiday season, “as they defy the odds – building their own thriving businesses and community in Los Angeles, lobbying for change in Washington D.C., and proving that investing in survivors saves lives.” Watch here.
THIS HAPPENED…
Keke Palmer included Church Ladies among her most memorable reads for Elle’s Shelf Life column!!!!
WHAT I’M LISTENING TO
Duh.
I now understand I was getting rejected because I still had a lot of growing to do as a writer. I was aiming too high and at publications that didn’t publish the kinds of things I was writing. I had no business submitting to The Atlantic! But in order to consider myself a Real Writer, I thought I needed to be published in a prestige publication. Immediately lol.
I’m developing not one but two TV shows just as Justine Bateman declares Hollywood dead in a very thoughtful piece…right before she went off the rails and celebrated Tr*mp’s win.